


I Want To Love You Madly

by AndreaLyn



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-29
Updated: 2020-09-29
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:26:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26715184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AndreaLyn/pseuds/AndreaLyn
Summary: Quynh happily allowed Andromache to tumble her into their bed, only surfacing hours later when she was fetching water for the both of them. In the kitchen, she found Nicolò in a similar state of disarray.“Your hair is sticking up,” she informed him calmly.He matted it down, but hardly looked unhappy about it. She suspected she was in a similar position. “We cannot keep this going forever,” he said. “They’re going to notice.”A timely rescue changes the course of the future and sets each member of the group on a happier path, all because Quynh was rescued before she could go into the sea.
Relationships: Andy | Andromache of Scythia/Quynh | Noriko, Booker | Sebastien le Livre/James Copley, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 47
Kudos: 433





	I Want To Love You Madly

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from Cake's _Love You Madly_!

They took Quynh from her two days ago.

In that time, Andromache had been working on a way to saw off her hands before they could heal, desperate to escape her chains before their captors returned. Sobbing, Andromache used her rage to fuel her, driving her towards Quynh. It had only been two days since they had taken her. If they were sailing, they couldn’t have gotten far.

If she could just _escape_. 

If she could _do something right_.

Screaming with guttural rage, Andromache watched her wounds heal before she could slip off the chains, blood dripping into the straw at her feet. It never worked. She was too old, her body was too used to repairing itself. Within seconds, the skin and bones knit themselves back into place. Andromache was whole again, and Quynh was gone. 

The doors opened and Andromache squinted against the sudden burst of sunlight. The door hadn’t opened in two days and her vision had yet to adjust to the light as two guards stepped inside, yanking at her chains. 

“We’ll take this one,” one of the guards said, hauling Andromache to her feet. She strained, weakened as she was, but desperate to fight. 

Andromache’s eyes flashed with fury against her captors. “Take these chains off me,” she warned, hissing at them, “and I’ll show you the mistake you made!” She kicked desperately, wildly, the manacles still dripping with blood. She intended to throttle the guard nearest to her with them, making her escape so she could go after Quynh.

“Don’t worry,” the first guard promised, speaking to one of the priests. “We know how to deal with women like this.”

Andromache was pure rage and fury, kicking at the hold, even as the two soldiers dragged her out into the sunlight. She had the grip on the chains, she could see the number of men she’d have to kill, but to get to Quynh, she could do it. She pressed her fingers on the metal a little tighter, about to make her move when the second guard gripped her arm a little tighter.

“ _Calmati_ ,” he hissed in her ear.

Breathless, Andromache gaped through her matted hair, still squinting as her eyes adjusted to the light. “Nicolò,” she exhaled, gaping. “Yusuf?” 

“Not yet,” Yusuf warned. “Not until we’re clear.” 

Andromache did not have to pretend to be shocked. The presence of the two men was unexpected, as she hadn’t thought that word of their capture would reach them for several more weeks. What panicked her more was not knowing where Quynh was. Her struggle was real, even as Nicolò and Yusuf brought her onto a boat.

“Where did they take her?” Andromache spat out, full of fury. “Is she in the sea? Tell me!”

“They tried,” Nicolò said, gently nudging Andromache’s attention behind her. 

“Even they could not part us,” Quynh spoke from where she sat on the deck of a small sloop wearing a pirate’s garb. Andromache’s eyes lit up, but she didn’t dare move until Yusuf had undone her manacles, letting them drop to the ground. 

Filthy and bloodied, Andromache was hardly a sight for sore eyes, but she still swept Quynh up into her arms, pressing relieved kisses to her forehead, her cheeks, and finally, to her lips. She soaked up each kiss from Quynh born of the fear that she might never have had another one of them.

“I don’t understand,” Andromache said, watching as Yusuf and Nicolò untied the ropes to set them out to sea. 

“They dragged me onto a ship in that cage, but no sooner than we cast off, there was a massacre.”

Yusuf tipped his head to the side from where he was winding the rope around a post, shrugging like he had no idea what they were talking about. “We got word of two witches who wouldn’t die while we were in London. We came as quickly as we could.”

“Your speed is something I am grateful for,” Andromache vowed, cupping Quynh’s face as she stared reverently at her. “I am never letting anything happen to you. It’s you and me, until the end.” 

“Until the end,” Quynh agreed. Andromache turned to thank Yusuf and Nicolò again, but they were already gone. Her eyes betrayed her confusion, but Quynh didn’t seem so lost. “Come, my heart,” she coaxed. “Yusuf was good enough to make sure we took on several barrels of water before the ship set sail. It will be cold, but I think that it would do us both some good to wash off the memory of what happened.”

She nearly lost Quynh. They had nearly taken her from Andromache’s arms. 

The rest of the voyage passed in a blurry haze. Andromache did not think she left Quynh’s arms for longer than a few moments. They nestled together on the deck wrapped around one another as they watched sunsets, they battled side by side against pirates who dared to try and overtake them, and the nights were spent gloriously in each other’s arms.

It was a nightmare turned dream, but it was better because it was her reality.

Nicolò and Yusuf gave them the space they needed, but Andromache suspected that it was, in part, selfish. They were likely fighting their own fears of separation and loss. What happened to Andromache and Quynh could just as well have happened to them. In this, they were like mirrors, reflecting one another’s fate. 

It was only when land appeared that Andromache praised their good fortune.

“I will owe you for this rescue for many lifetimes,” Andromache said, squeezing Yusuf’s shoulder as Nicolò brought in the sails so they could anchor offshore. “I think, of all people, you and Nicolò understand just how much she means to me.” 

Quynh smiled sunnily from where she perched upon the rail of the ship, tethering herself with the rope as she helped Nicolò to pull in the sails and set anchor. The brim of her broad hat flopped in the breeze and she waved to the both of them. 

She was alive. She was well. She was whole and she was Andromache’s. 

“For Nicolò, I would do more,” Yusuf protested. 

“Not as much as I would do for Quynh,” Andromache vowed with a steely edge to her words that she would use as a mantra in the coming centuries. These words would soon become the foundation of how they operated, even if at that moment, they didn’t realize it.

Then, all they cared about was the safe return of Quynh to their arms.

Once more, their family was whole.

* * *

The next hundred years settled them into new habits. They had been travelling together for nearly five hundred years before the witch trials, with breaks here and there, but something about their dynamic had shifted since freeing Quynh. 

Nicolò wondered if he was the only one to see it, but every so often he would catch the knowing glint in Quynh’s eye that said he was not. 

Andromache had held true to her word that she would do anything to keep Quynh safe, but there was an unspoken promise beneath it that she had been living up to over the last century. She would keep Quynh safe, and she would also keep Quynh happy. It was a very lovely sentiment, but it had a side effect.

Yusuf, ever the romantic, hated to be outdone.

If Andromache returned with flowers for Quynh, he would plant an herb garden for Nicolò. When Andromache showered Quynh with kisses in the morning at their Italian villa, Yusuf would sweep Nicolò off his feet to take him dancing beneath the stars. It worked in reverse, of course. Whenever Yusuf did something so romantic that Nicolò thought it might best live in poetry, Andromache would ensure that she blessed Quynh with a steady onslaught of affections. 

“I think you encourage it,” Nicolò mused, newly back from England where he and Yusuf had been to see the latest plays at the Globe. 

Quynh barely glanced up from the beautiful new necklace that Andromache had found her, liberated from a pawn shop in the streets of Paris where they had been visiting with some of the local writing talent. Quynh’s necklace now sat prominently upon Andromache’s breastbone, while Quynh proudly bore her new trinket. “I have no idea what you mean.”

Nicolò narrowed his eyes. “Yusuf,” he called, without even looking at him. 

Yusuf glanced up from his poetry, eyes landing on Nicolò. “Yes, my heart?”

“Did you see the lovely necklace that Andromache found for Quynh?”

The long silence was capped with Yusuf’s strangled, “I see.” That was all he offered before he excused himself, but not before he had checked upon his purse and brought it with him. Quynh knew that he would not return until he had found something as equally beautiful to bestow upon Nicolò. 

Perhaps her rescue and Andromache’s protective need to show her love through objects and actions was beginning to have ripples. 

“And you say I encourage it,” Quynh chided with a cluck of her tongue. “ _Nico_ ,” she chastised. “If you wanted some jewellery of your own, you could ask your husband rather than making him feel inadequate.”

“This way, he thinks he is being the romantic,” Nicolò remarked, opening his book again to return to his reading. 

Hours later, Yusuf arrived back and knelt, dutifully, before Nicolò on both his knees, holding out a beautiful ring, dotted with sapphires and white gold. Quynh didn’t bother to hide away, because she enjoyed seeing the satisfaction on Nicolò’s face as his lover presented him with a gift. Nearby, Andromache was stirring spices into the stew for dinner, barely paying attention to what was happening. 

“You are a treasure bringing me treasure,” Nicolò promised, stroking his fingers through Yusuf’s hair. “Thank you. Will you put it on me?” 

He caught Quynh’s eye, winking at her as Yusuf shifted to one knee to slide the ring upon Nicolò’s pinky, the signet ring catching the light. Quynh shook her head and began to move away, knowing the two of them well enough to know that they would be useless for the next hour, so caught up in each other.

She chose to join Andromache in the kitchen, fetching an apple to eat, despite Andromache’s glare that told her that the food was nearly ready. 

“What are those two doing?”

Mindful that if Quynh told her, she would likely be setting yet another gift in motion, Quynh held her tongue. “Nicolò is welcoming back Yusuf from the market,” she lied with ease. “Nothing to pay any attention to.” 

“And how long will he be welcoming him back for?”

“Long enough for you to do some welcoming of your own,” Quynh replied calmly. “Unless, of course, you intend for Yusuf and Nicolò to outdo us.” 

That evoked a thoughtful hum from Andromache and elicited a sly smirk from Quynh’s lips, who knew when she had her love in her trap. She waited patiently for an impatient move from Andromache, and was rewarded swiftly by Andromache’s steady hands on Quynh’s hips, grabbing her in for a claiming kiss after removing the stew from the fire. 

Quynh happily allowed Andromache to tumble her into their bed, only surfacing hours later when she was fetching water for the both of them. In the kitchen, she found Nicolò in a similar state of disarray.

“Your hair is sticking up,” she informed him calmly.

He matted it down, but hardly looked unhappy about it. She suspected she was in a similar position. “We cannot keep this going forever,” he said. “They’re going to notice.” 

“Nicolò,” Quynh clucked her tongue, giving him a viper-like smirk. “Are you telling me that between the two of us, either would give up our secrets so easily?” Nicolò was impenetrable at times and Quynh could withstand even the worst tortures of the world. They were steel and ice, diamond and carbon. 

Yes, Yusuf and Andromache _might_ discover their secrets.

If Quynh had to bet on it, she was going to favour herself and Nicolò as winning this game. It was far too easy to distract their lovers, after all, and any hint that they might be manipulated could be easily dismissed with the right touch, the right word, and the right attitude.

“I’ll put money on it,” Quynh said, showing her confidence.

Nicolò sipped his water, eyeing her warily, then glanced back to his bedroom. “I’m not stupid enough to take that bet,” he told her, before returning to Yusuf’s waiting arms. 

Quynh was _thrilled_ with his response. It meant she was retaining her partner in crime and her guarantee to always ensure she could stoke Andromache’s more romantic urges.

* * *

_1812_

For a long time, Sébastien had always thought that being pressed into Napoleon’s army was where he felt most out of place.

Then, he met the other immortals. 

“I’ve been meaning to ask about Andromache and Quynh…” Sébastien gestured to the two of them, where they sat together, pressed shoulder to shoulder, loading up the rifles with new ammunition. They were in the safehouse and well protected, but the two women still sat closer together than they needed to.

“They’re together,” Joseph helpfully provided. He was waiting for his opportunity, Sébastien could see it. The machinations were ticking away in his head like a clock, intent on seizing the first opportunity he could to inform Sébastien about how the lay of the land was. Sébastien had already figured it out, though, and was only looking for confirmation.

He nodded, letting his gaze slide away to where Nicolò was watching them intently.

“Does he know?” Sébastien asked with a gesture to him.

Joseph snorted and caught Nicolò’s eye. “My beloved is waiting to hear if I will share that we, too, are together.” 

Sébastien blinked. The information was taking a little to absorb and not just because Joseph had one of the strangest French accents that he had ever heard in his life. It was not uncommon for soldiers to take solace in one another, though Sébastien had never been the type. After all, he had a wife back home whom he loved with all his heart.

His new battalion, small as it was, suddenly felt very incestuously tangled. 

Then again, what choice did Sébastien have? 

At least, that was what he thought to begin with. It took Sébastien four months to break and realize that he had other choices apart from living with these four. 

They weren’t unkind. Andromache had a steely front, but she wanted only what was right for the world. Quynh could be cutting and sharp, but she was also funny and smart and clever. Joseph was a talented artist and overflowed with poetry, and he was fairly sure that Nicolò might just be the kindest man he’d ever met.

Yet, for all their attributes, it did not do enough to soften their sins.

Sébastien felt crude calling it that, because their love for one another was not a sin, nor a vice, but to him it was oppressing and endlessly more cutting than any knife could be. Unlike physical wounds, these did not heal so easily. 

They were demonstrative with their love. Gifts were showered upon Quynh and Nicolò and in turn, affections were returned. It showed Sébastien very quickly that while he was _like them_ , he was not. His wife was still in Paris with his sons, and while all four of them continued to insist that it was not a good idea, Sébastien knew that he could not be the eye of this romantic storm that swirled around him for much longer without breaking. 

Four months in, Sébastien decided that he would walk a different immortal road. 

“You’re sure?” Nicolò asked, once Sébastien had packed up the last of his things.

“I am,” he confirmed. He wished he could say that when he had lost his family, he would return to them, but he suspected that he would not be able to stand the waves of their happiness washing up against the shore of his grief. 

There was no place in their lives for him. Or, perhaps, Sébastien understood the future a little too well. He knew that his life would not end, but his wife’s would. How could he bear to stay here and watch these two couples love one another so deeply when he would be bearing a wound? 

“You’ll always have a place with us, Sébastien,” Andromache vowed. “I hope that we will also always have your help, should we need it.”

“You will,” Sébastien confirmed. “For now, I have time left with my wife. She may not understand what has happened to me, but I owe it to her to try and explain. Then, we’ll see what I’ll make of the world.” 

Andromache offered a hand to him, which Sébastien clasped tightly as they made their deal. Sébastien had a family to return to, but when they were gone, this would be the family he worked with, even if he still didn’t quite understand his place within it. 

“Take care of yourselves,” Sébastien offered as he packed his bag, departing with only what he’d carried with him to Russia.

“I think you’ll find none of us can die,” Quynh replied smoothly. “Avoid capture, avoid the sea, and be careful, even with the ones you think love you. You’re not the same as they are, not anymore.”

“Not yet,” Sébastien clarified, feeling it was important to distinguish that he might be immortal, but he was still the same forty-two year old father and husband as he’d been when he left. He had some time, though he knew he did not have eternity. 

That was better than nothing. 

Before he could leave, Nicolò handed him a sheet of paper with four addresses on them. “Safe houses,” Nicolò explained. “If you are ever in doubt, write to us or simply visit. We’ll be here when you need us.”

Sébastien opted not to say something cruel to the man offering him safety. He didn’t want to say that he would never need them, just as they would never need Sébastien. It seemed clear to him that they had everything they needed, just the four of them. “I will, brother,” he promised, tucking away the paper in his things. “ _Bonne chance_.”

“Keep that for yourself,” Andromache warned. “You need it more than we do.” 

With one last nod, he bid this new (and so very strange) group of immortals goodbye, heading back to his family having learned something new about himself. 

As he left, he could hear Joseph murmuring that it was a shame that Sébastien wasn’t going to join him, but the truth was that Sébastien knew that he would be sorely out of place. Quynh had Andromache. Joseph had Nicolò.

Sébastien had a home and a love, too. 

He intended to take advantage of it for as long as he possibly could.

* * *

_2020_

Nile’s new life was still a strange thing, even though the others kept attempting to explain it to her. She felt bad that they were shit at it, but...well, they really were terrible at explaining what had happened to her and what came next. In light of the lack of information, Nile had mentally decided that she needed to get _out_.

In the three days they’d been in the small apartment in Ostia Antica, Nile had tried to escape twice, but both times someone had been waiting for her. 

The first time, Q had been there with a very painful looking knife. The second time, Nicky had been at the head of the alley and had encouraged her to come to coffee with him and Joe. Three days since they’d picked her up from the desert and Nile could already see there were lines drawn in this sand.

Q and Andy were clearly together. That was cool, and Nile had actually found herself a little more comfortable with the fact that the two scary badass goddess women had a soft romantic side that they each brought out of one another.

Then, she realized that Q and Andy were _nothing_ in comparison to Joe and Nicky, who she’d met upon arrival at the apartment.

Three days ago, Nile hadn’t known any Italian.

She still didn’t, except that she could call you “treasure”, “dear”, “my heart”, and she was pretty sure she could also praise someone’s beauty in Arabic. 

Then she’d had to revise that opinion _again_ when it became clear that Q and Nicky had some weird bet going on where they kept trying to outdo one another. Andy lavished Q with treasures, mostly the sharp kind, and they clearly had no shame because they were willing to do the kinds of things that people usually wouldn’t unless they were in private. 

Nile was casing the apartment for her third escape attempt when her thoughts were interrupted with a knock at the door.

“Good, he’s here,” Andy said, shooting Nile a look like she was in trouble.

God, she hoped Andy couldn’t read minds. Then again, given Nile’s attempts to escape, it probably wasn’t subtle that she wanted to get out of this strange situation and back home to where things made sense. 

She lurked near the door, curious who it was that they’d called that wasn’t already established in this weird foursome. Andy opened the door to a tall man, wearing a denim jacket and a proud smile. He peered over Andy’s shoulder once she ducked in to embrace him tightly, giving the man full line of sight to Nile. 

“This is the new one?”

“Booker, you asshole!” Joe erupted with delight, crossing the distance to clap his hand on his back, dragging him into a hug right out of Andy’s arms. “When was the last time we saw you? 2017? The school?” Nicky hid a smirk behind his hand, which implied there was definitely a _story_ behind that one.

Nile glanced between them, feeling wary and uncertain about what was going on.

“Army of six,” she clarified her earlier comment, staring at the new man who had only existed in Andy’s stories up until now. “You’re Booker?”

“Sébastien Le Livre or Booker, but you can call me Bastien,” he introduced himself. “I came as soon as I saw you in my dreams.” Nile ignored the amused looks on Q and Nicky’s faces before they began chattering in what Nile believed to be Vietnamese. 

“You’re like us?”

He confirmed with a nod. Booker. She remembered that name. Andy had talked about him, though Nile hadn’t really been able to process another immortal at that point. She was sort of dealing with the bare minimum, telling herself she’d process the rest later.

“Then why aren’t you _with_ them?”

Booker snorted, gesturing to the others. Nile glanced over to see that Q had moved to stand with Andy, brushing her hair back and tidying up some of the blood splatter on her collar (from _shooting Nile_ during one of her training sessions, thank you, she wasn’t going to forget that). Only a little to the other side, she saw Joe stepping between Nicky’s legs, doing what Nile could only describe as casually canoodling. 

“Come on,” Booker encouraged, nodding his head. “Let’s go talk, just the two of us.” 

Nile stared at him warily, but with the others lurking around, there was no way she was going to escape. She might as well go with him. She followed him out to the little balcony that overlooked the ocean, leaning back against the iron railing. 

“So,” she said, not sure why he was here. “Are you here to make an introduction?”

Booker nodded, even if his expression looked like he had more than introductions to offer. “I am,” he admitted. “Like I said. I dreamed of you. I wanted to drop in and meet you because it feels inappropriate to have a view into your life and the dreams stop once we meet. I’m also here because Andy called the day after she found you, though. She thought that you could use a little advice.”

“Advice?” It was an understatement. “Please,” she went on, slightly sarcastic. “Give me your advice.” 

“I get it. It’s a lot,” he said. “That said, she thought that I’d be uniquely equipped to talk about your current situation and whether you stick around or go. You don’t have to stay with them, you know,” Bastien pointed out. 

That was news to her, given that they kept stopping her from escaping.

“Do they know that?” Nile scoffed.

Booker offered a rueful smirk. “They wanted to make sure that I got to talk to you before you made your choice.”

Nile didn’t know what to make of him. She’d heard stories about Booker (or Bastien, whatever it was he went by), and from what Andy had told her, she thought he’d be a much different man. Sadder? Andy had used him as a cautionary tale, but he looked healthy and normal with his blue button-down and the sweater overtop. 

“I don’t get it,” she said bluntly. “Andy said you went back to your family, but the way she said it…”

Booker gave an amused laugh. “Andy is over six thousand years old and has a skewed view on how you should deal with your family. Nicky and Joe had each other, so she never had to have that conversation with them.” He pulled out his flask to take a sip, pocketing it in the back of his dark trousers. “I returned home to my wife once I was immortal and told her the truth. She was elated that we had another chance. We had another child in 1813, the year I returned to them, and that same year, I made my wife a promise.” 

Nile waited, not sure what he was going to say, but holding onto the hope that maybe she’d be able to go back to her family.

“I had to leave my boys, that was the promise I had to make,” he admitted, roughly. “When the youngest of my four was an adult and after my wife had passed, we faked my death. She’d once told me that there would come a time when I could no longer be a father to them, but a guardian instead. My wife was a very smart woman,” Booker said with a rueful, yet fond smile. 

Nile was sure he’d said other things, but all she heard was that he went back to his family. What she needed to understand was how he operated in tandem with the team _now_. “So what do you do?”

“I consult,” Booker said helpfully. “I brought in James Copley, an ex-CIA asset who had been investigating us a few years ago and we work together to assist when called upon.”

“Brought him in. Bullshit,” Joe called from across the room, proving that he was eavesdropping. “Don’t listen to him Nile! He was screwing Copley and the first time he stayed the night, he saw bulletin boards filled with our exploits and wound up blackmailing him into helping.”

Nile shot Booker an amused look. “Seriously?”

The guileless shrug was owning it, she had to admit that. 

“I helped forge papers for the team’s first job with Copley. We hit it off, and he needed some company once his wife passed. I have a very dependable shoulder to cry on.”

“I think Copley was interested in other of your dependable things,” cracked Nicky. Nile peered over to find both him and Joe perched on the ledge of the open window like idiot birds watching them. 

Nile shot Booker a dubious look. “Will they fly away if I throw something at them?”

“You should try!” came Q’s voice. 

“It’s fine,” Booker said. “They already know this story, they can eavesdrops like the assholes they are.” It only earned smirks out of Joe and Nicky, who clearly weren’t impacted by Booker’s ire. “After my wife passed and I became a ghost to my boys, I found I preferred consulting. These two pairs are in love and I don’t begrudge them that, but I would have been miserable. I keep my own apartments and they contact me when they need something. Sometimes, even when they only need to drunkenly bitch that my team is better at football.”

Joe flipped him the bird, dragging Nicky back inside. Booker chuckled under his breath, turning back to Nile once they had privacy once more. 

“The point is that you choose,” Booker said. “If you want to go back to your family, you have to understand that they will age. They will pass. You will lose them and you will need to prepare yourself for that. You’ll also gain precious moments of happiness again because you know it’s finite,” he admitted. “I have seven descendants that still live. My job is to watch them, just as my job is to watch the four idiots in there. Five, now, including you, but I’m giving you some more credit that you’re not just a lovesick fool.”

“Credit appreciated,” Nile said, staring at Booker like he was her salvation. “I can go home?”

“Andy might make a fuss, but she won’t stop you,” Booker vowed. “She let me go. What do you want to do, Nile?”

She sought out the team’s reactions first. The window was still open and it was clear they were all still listening, even if they’d given them some distance. Nicky and Joe both had matching encouraging expressions on their faces. Q looked like she already knew what was going to happen. It was Andy, though, who made up Nile’s mind. 

Because the look on Andy’s face was something almost like regret.

“One day, you won’t remember them anymore,” Andy said quietly. “It will ache. It might hurt more if you go back, but it’s not my choice to make.”

She was right. It was Nile’s.

“Do you think I could get the next flight home to Chicago?” she asked no one in particular. “Does my family think I’m dead? What do I have to do next?”

“Five hundred, Nicky,” Booker said with a smirk. “I told you. I told you that she’d come to her senses and go back home while she could.” Joe was cackling loudly as Nicky dug out a pile of Euros to press into Booker’s hand. “James has put together some new documentation for you and changed your records. You’ll show as being wounded in action and honourably discharged after the incident.”

“Just remember,” Andy said, “that when it’s time to walk away, don’t look back. Nicky will give you safe house locations and emails to write to. We’re here for you.”

“They are and so am I,” Booker vowed. “For now, though, go home to your family, Nile.” 

She held back on the excited squealing sound, wrapping her arms around Booker as tightly as she could even though she’d only just met him, but the hug was short-lived. There was limited time to pack before someone changed her mind and told her that she had to stay.

She wasn’t looking this gift horse in the mouth.

* * *

“So it’s back to us four, is it?” Q remarked, once Nile had packed her bags to return to Chicago for the next decade and Booker had gone with her to see her off before returning to Copley. It would be a passing drop of water in the bucket -- good for Nile, but hardly noticeable for the rest of them. 

Andy was taping up her hands for a sparring match with Joe and ignoring her, but Nicky was nearby reading the paper. Q sidled over and perched on the edge of the couch, flickering at the edges of the paper to get Nicky’s attention. 

“ _Che?_ ” he asked, irritable as he yanked his pages back.

“I was just thinking that now that the new child has been dealt with, you and I have a tally to return to,” she said, innocent as she could possibly sound. Joe always said that it sounded wrong, but one day she thought she’d get it right. “I think you’re behind, Nicolò, and you owe me at least a thousand Euros.” 

Nicky scowled as he leaned forward to dig out a notepad from the back of his jeans, flipping to one of the spiral-bound pages. “Four behind,” he said, wrinkling his nose. “That can’t be right.”

“You and Joe were apart,” Q said, almost like she had completely forgotten about it. “It was very terrible of Andy to send Joe to New York on his own for that mission. It set you very back in our standings.”

Of course she had been the one to suggest it.

“Yusuf!” Nicky called, notepad in his back pocket, stripping his shirt off. “Tell Andy to get in line! I want first crack at you!”

Q cackled to herself as she followed at a sedate pace, curious how Nicky intended to turn a game of seductive wrestling into another bid to get Joe to shower him in affection and presents. Of course she had no doubt that he would be able to manage, but he and Joe were still infants compared to her and Andy. 

She would let him have this win -- and then she would rip it out of his hands for the sweet victorious bliss that she so rightly deserved.

That was the life that they led and Q could think of no better one.

**Author's Note:**

> As ever, you can also find me on [tumblr](https://andrea-lyn.tumblr.com/)!


End file.
